Concept Searching Publishes Annual Metadata Survey

Survey Results Compiled from SharePoint and Office 365 Organizations

This survey is both a statistically relevant and an unbiased data point on how enterprises value metadata, how they are using or planning to leverage metadata within SharePoint, and what is important to them.

McLean, VA, US and Stevenage, UK (PRWEB) April 22, 2014

Concept Searching, the global leader in semantic metadata generation, auto-classification, taxonomy management software, and developer of the Smart Content Framework™, is pleased to announce that the annual metadata survey for 2013 has been published.

The SharePoint and Office 365 Metadata Survey was conducted from November 2013 to February 2014. Three hundred and ninety six unique surveys were completed by organizations that currently have one or more versions of SharePoint in use. The survey was undertaken to determine the pulse of the marketplace in regard to metadata, classification, and the use of the SharePoint Managed Metadata Services, the Term Store, and term sets to improve access to information. An additional objective was to determine the current or projected use of Office 365.

The survey itself was made available via the Concept Searching website and participants were reached via social postings and news items. The survey was not sent to the Concept Searching client base or prospects. This was done to ensure unbiased results from a random group of participants, who chose to answer the survey. Best efforts have been made to ensure neutrality in the analysis of the results of the survey and that it is void of Concept Searching product information.

Although the survey sought to determine how SharePoint organizations were using the native tools delivered via the Managed Metadata Services, on a deeper level it sought to identify what were key organizational drivers in leveraging SharePoint to develop and deploy intelligent metadata enabled solutions. Intelligent metadata enabled solutions leverage metadata to improve business outcomes. The questions covered a wide variety of probable challenges and the responses solicited provided a framework to rank those challenges organizations are seeking to transform into solutions.

Some of the results surprised the research team. Statistics generated included the highest priority being placed on applications such as text analytics and social networking, which was not expected. The more traditional applications, such as eDiscovery and legal, records management, and information governance, all garnered significant interest.

According to Martin Garland, President of Concept Searching, “We sought to offer a source of industry information and thought leadership on trends, specifically as they relate to the use of metadata in the SharePoint and Office 365 environments. This survey is both a statistically relevant and an unbiased data point on how enterprises value metadata, how they are using or planning to leverage metadata within SharePoint, and what is important to them.” He continued, “We hope that all SharePoint and Office 365 enterprises will gain an insight into what their peer organizations are focusing on, both now and in the future.”

The survey is an excellent source of information on the business priorities and challenges on which SharePoint and Office 365 organizations are focusing. The results are informative and provide a broad-based view on how metadata is being used, devoid of product bias.

Concept Searching is headquartered in the US with offices in the UK, Canada and South Africa. For more information about Concept Searching’s solutions and technologies visit http://www.conceptsearching.com and our Blog, and follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.

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